Grade the draped bust half cent!

Great 3000th post, and I completely agree! Congrats!:smile

 

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I didn't intend to state it as fact, but rather opinion.

My opinion was derived thus :

CLEANED: The coin appears to have little rub / wear. Even for its age, a coin with so little circulation wear will usually show some luster. This one has none. I usually attribute that to cleaning.

RECOLORED: This color strikes me as very unnatural. My rationale is the odd color is artificial and an attempt to cover up cleaning.

 

I think you're missing my point, and won't belabor it other than to say this: The point is that on these coins the area of the drapery gets worn down in a very regular fashion, not necessarily corresponding on how the TPGs grade them (see my response below for an explanation of this point).

Said simply, because TPGs grade non-lustrous circulated copper often by the details grade, not the "wear" grade.

A fair question, but I think you're taking my words slightly out of context. In other threads, and to the best of my knowledge, I've stated that strike is rarely taken into account by the TPGs when it comes to grading. I believe the last few times we've discussed it we were talking about mint state coins, particularly moderns. What we are seeing here is how they take into account a weak strike on a circulated coin that was normally weakly struck -- quite a different animal. As an aside, I seem to recall discussing this issue once before when I posted my 1821 large cent in a guess the grade thread.

I explained my rationale in the PCGS thread:

"From a TPG perspective, that coin probably has XF wear, but VF or F details, so I suspect NGC graded it closer to the details than the wear and guess VF 20."

Said a bit differently, the TPGs often grade circulated coins in this grade range (say XF-VF, particularly those that lack luster) on their details rather than their wear. In contrast, if this coin were a mint state coin or even AU coin with significant luster left, the TPGs often use the luster to grade the coin.

Don't ask me to justify or rationalize it because other than to say "the TPGs rank or price coins" I don't have a real good answer -- I simply am making observations, having looked at many thousands of slabbed pieces of copper.

I understood you the first time, and I am not suggesting that uneven wear doesn't occur, but in this case I believe you are mistaking strike deficiencies for wear....

I contend this coin has seen little circulation but suffers from an uneven strike. I offer as the lack of wear on the drapery as proof that the coin didn't see circulation. I offer the Heritage archives as proof that this coin is found with weak strikes:

http://coins.ha.com/common/search_r...1807&Ntk=SI_Titles&Ns=Time|1&N=51+790+231+306

Even Walter Breen states when discussing the LDS of this variety "On many of the unusual weak strikes this crumbling [above LI] is hard to see."

So if you think the coin has seen significant circulation, enough to exhibit uneven and/or significant wear, please explain to me one thing -- how does the drapery have practically no wear whatsoever?

Respectfully...Mike

 

"Upon further review", my original statement is overly brusque and overstated.

My entire train of thought on this thread is for circulated coins. Mint state coins are handled differently.

For instance, the "ANA Grading Standards 6th Edition" deals mostly with circulated coins. Its writeup for Mint State coins is identical whether one is dealing with a 1993 Lincoln Cent or a 1793 Chain cent - or any other coin, for that matter. In no case do they show illustrations of various Mint State grades, and the verbiage is of little value.

In contrast, Jim Halperin's book "How To Grade Mint State Coins" deals mostly with Mint State coins, and has a very different approach.

I certainly agree that many people make a large distinction in missing detail due to strike vs rub for circulated coins. That's fine, and that's their perogative.

I simply disagree... for the most part. But not completely. I appreciate allowances for missing detail due to die state.

For instance, let's look at legends on an early copper... an 1807 S-274 DBC. This variety is known for die bulges which obliterate parts of the legend, leaving other parts intact.

We see this one has lost the reverse letters STA; all remaining legend is bold. Clearly, this is not due to wear, but rather a die issue. In this case, the die was bulging. I'm told further die bulging ultimately obliterated ONE CENT in later die state specimens.

This cannot be uneven wear, since many different specimens show the same characteristics.

For some, these are collectible dies state, and part of the fun and scholarship of these coins. Missing detail is part of the game. And instructive.

Is that "missing sharpness" ? It depends on what you're shopping for; there is "no one size fits all" answer. Shopping for an excellent type coin ? Yes, it's missing sharpness. An EAC specialist studying die states ? Probably not. For some, it might bring a premium !

Crummy strikes on the other hand... I'm sorry, guys, but if a coin has VF sharpness and some of the loss is due to rub and some due to crummy strike, it's a VF coin. Period, the end. That's what I meant by "missing sharpness is missing sharpness".

But that's just me.

It's just my personal collecting ethos, not fact (though my original statement sounded that way).

Respectfully submitted,

Ricky B

 

So, from this statement I gather that weakly struck coins can practically "skip" a grade once they see enough circulation? So in the circulation process the softly struck coin can go from MS to AU, then practically skip XF and go straight to VF once enough luster is worn off? That seems kind of weird to me, but hey, TPGs are what they are. I always assumed though that a coin was not penalized for its strike, even through the circulated grades...

I have a feeling that stuff will make more sense once I have this coin in hand.

 

In practice, they don't really skip any grades because the uncleaned examples (and some of the cleaned ones) will still have enough luster left to grade XF, but I think you got the gist of what I was saying.

 

It may make some more sense, but I have a feeling you won't truly understand the issue completely until you've seen, in your own two hands, many, many slabbed examples -- or at least that's what it took for this hard-headed collector to figure it out.

 

Here are several other VF-25s to 35s for comparison, all of which are easier to grade than mine for sure:

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1118&Lot_No=7014#Photo

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=1118&Lot_No=7014#Photo

http://coins.ha.com/common/view_item.php?Sale_No=447&Lot_No=7039#Photo

 

I find it notable that each of these coins has a very uneven strike (or wear, depending on your perspective) as well.

 

I agree, GDJMSP, with your statements above. However, I feel (rather strongly) that is not what happened with the coin in question.

 

Received the coin today, and WOW! Everything I expected and more! The color in the photos is way off, as the coin is dark brown and even appears to have some remaining luster on the obverse! Absolutely no green coloring like the pics. The reverse has some irridescent tones though that look like a possible old dip job though, but all in all, this coin is beyond impressive for the grade. Definitely a keeper. I will be posting updated pics soon.

 

That should stir up the pot even more !

Congrats on a cool coin. Glad you enjoy it.

 

Glad to hear you like the coin, and looking forward to your pics of it.

 

Ok, here are a couple of quick teasers before I go back to work. Now I have enough experience with coins to know what luster looks like, however; I'm not at all experienced with early copper. Let me first say that the obverse is a uniform dark brown color. The areas on liberty's neck and chin and in the field in front of her face that are lighter in color(as shown in the pic) light up when placed under a light. The light continues to change positions around the coin as I've seen on some of my darker lustrous copper coins. It also moves across part of her face and neck. It actually cartwheels some behind her head. If this isn't real luster, I would argue that someone tried hard to simulate it. The places where I see luster make sense though, as they are stronger in the lower, more protected parts of the coin.

The reverse, however, has none of these affects at all. It has some irridescent coloring when placed under angeled light, and is otherwise very flat as far as reflecting light is concerned.

Anyways, I will try to get some better pics later tonight to better illustrate what I'm saying.

 

I take it back, there is a slight bit of cartwheel action on the reverse too, but it is much more subdued. The coin also has a bunch of little rim nicks as you can see.

 

To me, unfortunately, it looks a lot less natural and lower in grade in these images than in the first ones. I'd love to tell you I felt differently.

 

I tried to capture the luster by using a lot of glare. I assure you, at least on the obverse, that the color is very uniform.

 

Unfortunately, I tend to agree with Mark's comments on the new pics. That said, the coins still doesn't appear to have a great deal of wear -- but it does look like something's been done with the surfaces (recolored?).

Please take some more pics and post them....